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Hanford Reach management plan's release delayed
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RICHLAND -- The 900-page plan that will guide management of the Hanford Reach National Monument might not be released to the public for up to another nine months, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.
The document was to have been ready sometime this summer, but it is taking longer to prepare than expected, Greg Hughes, project leader for the agency, said Monday.
The $3 million plan will set the basic management direction for the stretch of Columbia River and surrounding land for the next 15 years.
The agency sent the plan out for review by the Department of Energy and Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Portland about a week ago. Hughes said his superiors reviewing the plan have requested that it include more detail on wildlife and habitat management and want it reworked.
"We would rather be implementing than planning, but we need a good plan to implement from," he said.
The work will continue without the board that represented Mid-Columbia community members and helped steer much of the management plan's direction. The Hanford Reach National Monument Advisory Board was disbanded earlier this year after the Secretary of Interior did not renew its charter.
The group was composed of representatives of business, tribes and environmental groups.
The Hanford Reach is the longest remaining free-flowing segment of the Columbia River, stretching 51 miles from Priest Rapids Dam to just below the city of Richland. In 2000, President Clinton designated 193,000 acres surrounding it as a national monument.
Some of the land has been closed to the public since World War II, when it was established as a buffer zone around the Hanford nuclear reservation, where plutonium was produced for the nation's nuclear weapons program.
Producing a management plan for the site has been a years-long process that has not come without strife among residents.
Last year, about 700 elk vexed officials by wandering on and off the Hanford Reach, eating nearby crops and escaping hunters limited to stalking the animals that stray off monument land.
Hughes said he had been pursuing an emergency plan that might have allowed public hunters into the area to help control the growing herd. But the process of completing the paperwork for such a hunt, as well as public comment and regulatory guidelines for hunters, won't be finished in time for the annual return of the elk to the Hanford Reach this fall.
"We won't make it this go-round; at earliest it would be next year," he said.
Hughes said that leaves the agency with few options for controlling the elk this year before the management plan is completed. Those options include trapping, relocating the animals, hazing them back onto the Hanford Reach with aircraft or a government shoot.
So far, no tribal, wildlife or state group has notified Fish and Wildlife that it is willing to provide a home for any of the excess elk.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RICHLAND -- The 900-page plan that will guide management of the Hanford Reach National Monument might not be released to the public for up to another nine months, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.
The document was to have been ready sometime this summer, but it is taking longer to prepare than expected, Greg Hughes, project leader for the agency, said Monday.
The $3 million plan will set the basic management direction for the stretch of Columbia River and surrounding land for the next 15 years.
The agency sent the plan out for review by the Department of Energy and Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Portland about a week ago. Hughes said his superiors reviewing the plan have requested that it include more detail on wildlife and habitat management and want it reworked.
"We would rather be implementing than planning, but we need a good plan to implement from," he said.
The work will continue without the board that represented Mid-Columbia community members and helped steer much of the management plan's direction. The Hanford Reach National Monument Advisory Board was disbanded earlier this year after the Secretary of Interior did not renew its charter.
The group was composed of representatives of business, tribes and environmental groups.
The Hanford Reach is the longest remaining free-flowing segment of the Columbia River, stretching 51 miles from Priest Rapids Dam to just below the city of Richland. In 2000, President Clinton designated 193,000 acres surrounding it as a national monument.
Some of the land has been closed to the public since World War II, when it was established as a buffer zone around the Hanford nuclear reservation, where plutonium was produced for the nation's nuclear weapons program.
Producing a management plan for the site has been a years-long process that has not come without strife among residents.
Last year, about 700 elk vexed officials by wandering on and off the Hanford Reach, eating nearby crops and escaping hunters limited to stalking the animals that stray off monument land.
Hughes said he had been pursuing an emergency plan that might have allowed public hunters into the area to help control the growing herd. But the process of completing the paperwork for such a hunt, as well as public comment and regulatory guidelines for hunters, won't be finished in time for the annual return of the elk to the Hanford Reach this fall.
"We won't make it this go-round; at earliest it would be next year," he said.
Hughes said that leaves the agency with few options for controlling the elk this year before the management plan is completed. Those options include trapping, relocating the animals, hazing them back onto the Hanford Reach with aircraft or a government shoot.
So far, no tribal, wildlife or state group has notified Fish and Wildlife that it is willing to provide a home for any of the excess elk.
